Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Join the CBR18 Book Bingo Reading Challenge—Now Underway!   

Doggie-powered magical alchemy

Roverpowered 2-3 by Drew Hayes

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Bingo 4: Middle OK, so I mentioned a rough week about 2 reviews ago. Here come the middle volumes of Rover Powered (2-3) such as the series currently is [5 out, 6th on the way]. So mid-series for Middle square. Wanda and Wumble go to alchemist training, and Wanda and Wumble go on their first group quest (team misfit!). Still cozy. Sill just what I wanted. And we even get a little bit from Wumble’s doggie perspective. Once again, the classic frames of the magic […]

Roverpower for the win

Roverpowered 1 by Drew Hayes

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Bingo 2: Refuge How to find solace the week the world loses Dolly Parton, Tim  Curry, Peter Cullen, and I’m getting into a challenging time at work, life outside work is over-busy, I’m tired, etc.? Drew Hayes novellas, obviously. I’ve been a fan of this author for years, knew he had this series Roverpowered, but had never really bothered to look into it further. It’s labeled as cozy fantasy and YA; it deserves those labels, but was also perfect refuge from the real world, at […]

Brighter Than Scale, Swifter Than Flame:

Brighter Than Scale, Swifter Than Flame by Neon Yang

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This novella tells the story of how Kunlin Yeva becomes the masked Guildknight of Mithrandon, a dragon slayer of incredible power and great renown, and of he assignment in a kingdom that worships dragons instead of slaying them. As a teenager, Yeva stops a young wyrm from killing her and her sister, and in the process shows that she has a magical predisposition for dragon slaying. Her father sends her to the capital to join the guildknights. She is trained and becomes the most lethal […]

A Long and Speaking Silence: “Certain Compassion. A wish for kindness, a hope for the future…., and what everyone hopes to find on a journey far from home.”

A Long and Speaking Silence by Nghi Vo

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CBR Bingo: Steal – One of the characters, Ha Beili won’t stop stealing things. In her defense, she doesn’t have anything or a job so obtaining necessities through standard means isn’t really available to her. This entry in the Singing Hills Cycle is one of the few, if not the only one, that has sufficient context clues to place it in the timeline of Cleric Chih’s adventures with some amount of confidence. Chih has only recently become a full cleric, and this is one of […]

A Little Luck

A Little Luck by Claudia Piñeira

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Claudia Piñeira’s Elena Knows was probably my favorite book of last year (!) so I sought out another of her novellas this year.  A Little Luck is similar to, but not quite as mysterious as, Elena Knows. If you liked Elena, pick this one up! It’s a little lighter although the pacing of the reveal is just as well done. Mary Lohan escaped her Buenos Aires neighborhood 20 years ago in a guilty fugue – one that the reader will not understand until the end […]

A harrowing journey in 93 pages.

Happening by Annie Ernaux

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“Thousands of girls have climbed up stairs and knocked on a door answered by a woman who is a complete stranger, to whom they are about to entrust their stomach and womb. And that woman, the only person who can rid them of their misfortune, would open the door, in an apron and patterned slippers, clutching a dish towel, and inquire, “yes, miss, can i help you?” I had been casually looking for this book (which was strangely expensive on Kindle, although the price seems […]



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